Tales of Britain: Marcy's Story
by Martamos
Summary: There is a story in post war Britain, it is one that all children know and all adults have heard of. This story is "Caesar and Marcy" an up lifting tale of a man saving a little girl from the horrors of the war. But what is the truth of this tale that so many have told. Now we will have the chance to hear the truth from the only person that remembers it, the now adult Marcy.
1. Prologue

**Marcy's Story**

Disclaimer: I do not own World War Z but I do own this story.

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Prologue

There are few stories of survival in war time Britain that do not speak to the survivors of those terrible events. However one tale has captured the hearts of this nation through its story of bravery and tragedy. The story of Caesar and Marcy well known, my own children tell me there was a production of it at their school.

It has been over ten years since war's end and having been stuck in open territory myself, I found the need to ensure my children were not being fed miss information for the purpose of a cheap laugh. It was my surprise then however when I learnt that this children's story was in fact based in reality. Having little else to do I set myself the task of uncovering the truth behind the story, a task which I am almost ashamed to say has become a small obsession.

For those of you who have never seen a production of this story or read one of your children's story books. Caesar and Marcy is a strange tale of a man that rescues a little girl at the beginning of the war and proceeds to protect her through the next ten years of conflict. Depending on the version of this story you hear the ending is quite different. My children tell me their schools version ended with a grown up Marcy looking for a lost Caesar. The more famous play version has Caesar dying after his famous charge at the final push to take London.

On ending caught me as odd when I first began my investigation into this new classic, the version I heard from war veterans. This ending was one I did not want to believe but was the push I need to finish this task I had set myself. The veterans I found were a haggard pair I found after asking around for people that had been at the retaking of London.

They told me the truth of what they had seen, for both of them had actually spoken to Caesar on more than one occasion. They had not seen the towering hero that the poets among us would have us believe. They saw a man half man being cared for by a teenage girl in tears. Realising how far I still had to go to find the truth I called on every favour I could think of to get some time with the one person that could tell me the truth.

It took a lot of convincing but in the end I was able to convince her of my desire for truth. I finally got my interview with Marcy August.


	2. Chapter 1: Marcy August

**Marcy's Story**

Disclaimer: I do not own World War Z but I do own this story.

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Chapter 1: Marcy August

I meet Marcy August at a cafe on the west side of the river Thames right in the centre of London. I she told me it was for dramatic effect but I see her eyes linger fondly around the city landscape and i find I have my doubts.

Marcy is not what I had expected from out talks over the phone and I admit the image of her in my head. Far from some damsel in distress like figure Marcy is tall and lean with more long black hair than I thought possible. It only hits me after we sit down that this grown woman is the same Marcy from all the stories I had researched over the last few months.

It takes a bit for me to get set up, my microphone and notepad out to make sure I don't miss anything. I have to stop myself from laughing at the amused look on Marcy's face. Finally we are able to begin.

**Marcy: **Go on ask.

**Me: **Urrrmm...

**Marcy: **Ask the damn question so we can get on with the sob story.

I take a deep breath before continuing.

**Me: **Are you the young girl from the story Caesar and Marcy?

She lets out a brief huffing sound of amusement.

**Marcy: **I guess I am, though I want in there that I hate that name.

**Me: **Why may I ask?

**Marcy: **Isn't it obvious.

She waits for my response, when I give none she roles her eye and continues.

**Marcy: **His names not bloody Caesar. Hell do you even know his real name?

I quickly pick up my notes and check though I had taken the name to memory.

**Me: **Simon August.

She flashes me a wide grin.

**Marcy: **Well done, that makes you the first in a while to actually know that bit. Gods you have no idea how many people have spoken to me like I was saved by some hero named Caesar. Catchy yes but I always prefer Simon, I said the damn name every day for years and I promise I am not tired of it. Well go on ask your first question.

I look to my list.

**Me: **The common story says Cae...Simon found you in the fall of London but with your name.

She gives me another huff of laughter though this one sounds more genuine.

**Marcy: **Mate I took that name after we started meeting people again and before you ask, no I do not remember my parents much and nor do I want to talk about it. Don't even remember their names. But trust me, me and Simon, not related. If you had ever seen us together you could have told after a few seconds. The only thing we had in common was unmanageable hair and his was brown.

**Me: **So he really did find you in London?

**Marcy: **I don't really remember much about that bit, I was seven and there were zombells everywhere...sorry zombies. Simon used to call them zombells to make me laugh.

There is a brief pause, Marcy seems to shrink a bit in her chair. After a moment she is back to normal and looking at me expectantly.

**Marcy: **Well go on then, what else do you want to know.

**Me: **Well everything really, this is all meant to be the truth of the story. Your story.

**Marcy: **You really mean that?

I nod without thinking, nearing knocking my drink onto my notes and microphone in my enthusiasm. Marcy laughs at this and seems to relax more.

**Marcy: **All right mate but if you want the whole story we are going to have get some food.

We order a round of food from the counter and Marcy props her feet up and starts her story, half a bagel still in her mouth.

**Marcy: **Ok let's start with year one, you pipe in whenever K. I start crying just leave me to it, it will end quickly. I promise you now that I'll tell you the truth of this, I know people have said I edited my first version a bit. No this one is all truth.


	3. Chapter 2: Year One

_Finally here it is, the actually start of the story. I hope you enjoy this one, I liked writing it. Ill get to work on the next one soon, hopefully it should take less time._

_**Disclaimer: ** I don't own world war z, trust me you would have noticed it would have been set mostly in Britain._

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Chapter 3 – Year 1

Marcy: Like I know you know and everyone knows, hell you just said it to me, Simon found me in London. Like I said no idea about my parents, I was seven and it was right in the middle of out Great Panic. As far as I know they didn't just leave me behind but what do I know.

**Me: **Did you know Simon before he picked you up?

**Marcy**: Nope, which unfortunately makes what happened sound oh so horrible to the nah sayers out there. Ass holes looking at a teenage girl's description of a heroic rescue and all they can do is call him a secret pedo grooming me as some kind of toy. I take it from what you said on the phone you read "Ugly Saviour" right.

**Me**: I have yes.

**Marcy**: You like it?

**Me**: Well I was doing research so...

**Marcy**: Did you like it?

**Me**: It was well written.

(She nods grudgingly.)

**Marcy**: It was, in fact first time I read it I liked it. He did it way, kept everything in subtext and fade outs. I read it now and I see it, the weird twists in what Simon said, that disgusting way he described him...him touching me.

(She slams her hand down on the table in anger, she does not cry but there is a wet sheen to her eyes.)

**Marcy**: He even had the gall to write it from my point of view, he turned my best friend in the world into a monster and he used me to do it. Worse than Brooks I tell you and I don't say that often. What else have you read?

**Me: **Everything really, "Caesar's Story", the children's book "Caesar and Marcy", "The Mad Hero". I even got my hands on the transcript of your first interview after the war.

**Marcy**: Not bad.

(She nods in approval.)

**Marcy**: You should ignore what you read in "Caesar's Story" that whole think he wrote about with the rejection of the safe zone is rubbish we never even got close. That woman that wrote that I had nothing to do with it but...

(She starts laughing to herself, it is almost a full minute before she is ready to talk again.)

**Marcy**: Sorry about that but gods...ok you've read it so you might know. You know that chapter, she puts it in year seven or something. It's called...the Gates of Stronghold that was it. A lot of that book was close to the truth but that one.

Ok first before we begin I want to get rid of that myth, we never got that close to Stronghold. Every "biographer" (She makes mocking quotation marks in the air) wets themselves over one line in my first interview, "We saw what I guess was Stronghold but it could have been something else."

That woman interprets that as license to make up an all out fight between Simon and that Noah guy. Too many of those war time feel good movies.

You did good reading Mad Hero, I liked that one. It was the only one that didn't completely gloss over everything, make Simon out as some kind of magic knight or a pervert. Saying that though I do love the kiddie version.

**Me**: That version is actually what got me interested in the first place.

**Marcy**: Ha! Well that's a new one it's better than that play they came up with that was almost insulting. I can get the Caesar hero factor but what they did with me was just insulting.

**Me**: How so?

(She looks at me flatly.)

**Marcy**: It was how they handled the time difference, I can get that they used two actors but come on. The first one was this lovely little girl, right age and everything and she did like half the show and that part was great. Then half way through you get a huge time jump and cute little stage me becomes this bomb shell with boobs the size of little me's head.

(She blows a loud raspberry.)

**Marcy**: Show business...any why where was I...

**Me**: You wanted to start from the beginning.

**Marcy**: Oh ye horrific childhood trauma. I would love to tell you that Simon found me somewhere near here or something but I have no idea where it was. I remember I lost my mother somewhere outside, I think, like I said I don't really remember.

The world was full of monsters and I was small and terrified. I wondered through the crowds crying so much that I really could not see what was going on. I know at one point someone or something tried to grab at me but I got shoved away by all these people rushing passed. When I got to my feet after being kicked around for a while I finally had just enough awareness to see the fire or at least the smoke and light.

This is the big amazing bit you wanted to hear about by the way. I was just standing there crying to myself, I couldn't do anything. I could tell there were less and less people run past, I guess I could see some of them feeding on people.

I can't be sure I was out of it and some of them were on fire or disfigured from it. They were just "the monster" to me, they had changed everything I was used to and they terrified me.

Things were getting hotter, brighter, I started to choke through my tears. I guess it was the smoke that stopped the zombells from seeing me as long as they did. One did eventually, I looked up just once and there she was. Some woman, her face burnt, her teeth (she gestures to her own) with her lips and everything burnt away you could see everything.

That was when I saw him first, he shoved her away from me and hit her twice with this giant hammer thing. I didn't even know what was happening.

**Me**: What did he seem like to you?

**Marcy**: Huge, dark, I don't know. The first think I thought was that he was terrifying, all blackened by soot, blood on his arms. I was going to run before he knelt down and I saw his face...

You know what people tend to forget when they write about Simon?

_(I shake my head.)_

His age, everyone assumes he had to be some middle aged veteran or something. He wasn't, I saw him and he was young, not like teenager young but younger than you would think. Nineteen years old, I asked him a few years after and that was what he told me.

He asked me what I was doing there and where my family was, I just stared at him. I heard that you know moaning, you get used to it on the road but right then it was the most horrifying think I could imagine. He must have heard it too I guess because he just grabbed hold of me and ran.

That part is a bit like the books, the running through the streets and stuff. I had my face berried in his chest for most of it so I can't tell you where we were running. Hell I was seven I would not have known where I was if we had been in a helicopter in the middle of the day and before you ask no it was not night it was like...seven thirty maybe I don't know, the sun was setting.

At some point I fell asleep or maybe passed out is a better way to describe it. When I woke up we were on the roof of a small block of flats in a different area of the city. I think about it now and I don't know how he got us up there.

I think it had something to do with a small fire that happened in the building before we got there. Most of the people must have abandoned it in the panic, that's the theory anyway.

Anyway he feed me, cleaned me up, checked me for bites and the like. I was in too much shock to talk but he got my name from my cloths and he told me his. I remember that bit really well actually, he made me shake his hand and introduced himself in this over the top way that kept me from crying for a while.

Most of the stuff after that was a bit of a blur, at least for a few days. I would stay on the roof under a box while he went through the building looking for food and other supplies.

**Me**: How long did it take you to start talking?

**Marcy**: What?

**Me**: How long did it take before you started talking to him?

**Marcy**: Oh, like a week maybe two. Like I said I was never clear with time and everything. When he was around setting things up at the beginning he used to talk to me all the time, well more like talk at me. I guess he just needed to talk to keep himself going.

It was really confusing for me though, he didn't call me Marcy at first either. He always called me Marceline, I guess because that was what was on my cloths but I didn't always register that as my name so I thought he was a bit mad for a while.

I started talking to him around when he was trying to move a mattress onto the roof. The door way up was way too small and (_She laughs to herself_) he had picked the largest one he could possibly find. Seriously like a giant square of bright green mattress.

I came over and asked if I could help, he asked me to pull while he pushed and that was sought of the end of it I guess you could say or the beginning, who cares. I could talk after that, don't know why just could.

**Me**: What about the dead?

**Marcy**: Oh they were around (_She laughs at me_) not in the building as far as I knew but they were around.

**Me: **As far as you knew?

**Marcy**: Simon's first rule, the one that I was never to even think about breaking. (_She puts on a deep well spoken accent_) "_Marcy you stay on the roof, no exceptions!_" I had no idea at that point how dangerous it was so I was always miffed about this. I guess it was Simon, he had chased the fear out of me in those first few weeks. I didn't get how dangerous it must have been, I heard stuff but it was only so far away from what normal London had been like for me.

**Me**: What kind of stuff did you hear?

**Marcy**: Dude come on! You're older than me, you lived through the same panic I did. What kind of stuff did you think I was hearing?

**Me**: I'm sorry I just...

**Marcy**: Don't (_She holds up a hand to silence me_) sorry just...like I said I had no idea. Simon kept me pretty in the dark. He would vanish for a few hours, come back all sweaty and sometimes bloody with some more food or a new bag of stuff I was not allow to touch.

**Me:** So how long did that last?

**Marcy**: The roof thing?

**Me**: Yes I mean you can't have just been stuck up there for that long.

**Marcy**: You would be surprised, Simon seemed really intent on keeping me in one place. Plus you have to remember, I was seven. Without a clock, calendar or school to tell me what day it was. Hell this thing I'm doing for you now, going year by year. How accurate do you think it's going to be? The closest I came to checking the date was looking forward to my birthday.

**Me**: Birthday? You were still celebrating your birthday.

**Marcy**: Ha! You bet I was, I was seven and then I was Simon's spoiled brat, or at least that's what they called me.

**Me**: They?

**Marcy**: Later.

**Me**: But...

**Marcy**: Later! That's down the road and I have enough problems keeping all this together as is.

**Me**: Ok...but tell me this, what did he do to keep you both safe?

**Marcy**: Safe how? If you mean physically then you have to wait a bit, it's a long while before I even get close to a zombell. But if you talking safety in the broader sense then I can help you.

**Me**: Please.

**Marcy**: Ok (_She leans forward onto the table her face more serious than before_) first think he did was make sure I knew I was not safe. I he still kept me locked in the tower but I always knew that it was not safe, though I don't think it even sunk in that far at first. When things quieted down a bit, you know when the living were almost completely replaced by the dead, he took me over to the edge of the room for the first time.

I was all excited and everything because that had been rule number two (_She does her impression of Simon_) "_Marcy there is nothing good down there any more, don't look over or they will see you!" _I always knew he was being serious when he actually used my name.

**Me**: What else would he call you?

**Marcy**: Any nickname he could think of, usually "little" something. Though once he called me Gunter, though I think that was a joke. Anyway he took me over the edge and showed me what was going on. You know it's weird thinking back to how I looked at them back then. You know most children, well you know former children, that saw them didn't see reanimated people. They were just monsters, human shaped but not people not like we are told people are at that age.

That day really hit me and I guess I started appreciating Simon more at that point. Simon had been just "the adult" the only adult around and I just put him in charge of things and went back to my colouring or waiting for when he said I could have some food.

It's so strange thinking about it now, when you're little everything is huge. I remember the one door onto the roof always looked like this...ugly thing, big and rusted. Like it had a face that glared at you.

We slept in two big tents with that one huge mattress. Simon also set up all these...I guess they were bits of other tents or something. Anyway they for collecting rain water into buckets, I hated it but Simon made me drink.

**Me**: How long did all this last?

**Marcy**: You asked me that already and I still don't know.

**Me**: I know just, you can't have stayed up there for the whole war. I've heard stories about war time London, plus the after action body counts were at over six million zombies. I'm finding it hard to believe that you could have survived that long.

**Marcy**: We didn't don't worry, anyway there would be no story about the guy who kept a girl on a roof for a decade.

**Me**: So what happened to make you leave?

**Marcy**: Winter...mostly, I think there was more to it looking back. We were eating less and less, not starving or anything but enough to stop the jokes. Simon would vanish for longer periods, I would wake up and he was gone and would not be back for almost a day.

**Me**: What would you do when he was gone?

**Marcy**: (She laughs) Curl up under our covered and try not to feel hungry. I was always cold at this point, the sheets and sleeping bags we had kept us warm for a while but did nothing when I had to move around.

I had chores to do during the day, putting water in bottles, taping up broken screwdrivers he brought back. I was rarely worried at this point, too hungry to be worried. I got a bit scared the first time the water in the buckets froze.

It worried him but he found ways around it, told me to break up ice cubes for our drinks, that was fun I guess but tiring. Snow started falling at some point, Simon was gone for almost two days sometimes. I heard clunking from down bellow that sent me under the covers.

And then I got ill...

**Me: **The cold?

Marcy: Ye the flu or something, I don't think Simon knew. I was in bed for days eating up Simon's ration as well as mine. It got bad enough that we broke Simon's rule, he took me down into the flat bellow, out of the wind.

(She grows silent)

**Me**: What happened?

**Marcy**: Zombies, not many but...I had never seen them so clearly or seen what Simon had to do. It was horrible, Simon was my friend and I hadn't even thought about him fighting. That big hammer of his was brutal, really brutal. I got to see up close what he was using all the screwdrivers for.

They came in ones and twos, biggest group was about seven I think. I was ill for a week or so and after that it was clear they was no way back to the roof. After a while, after my strength was back, Simon told me we had to leave.

**Me**: That must have been hard for you.

**Marcy**: I had not left for gods know how long, since the high point of the panic when they evacuated everyone they could from London. I checked the times after the war and I was up there for what must have been five to seven months! How Simon did it I don't know but after that we were on the move constantly.

**Me**: You left in the middle of winter?

**Marcy**: Ok maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, we did wait a while. Tested the air was the best way to put it I guess. He took me out for the first time, an eight year old in a duffle coat coated in gaffer tape and holding a screw driver.

We made small trips out, looking for things we need to survive on the move. We had a lot of it, you know the sleeping bags and the tent. I was gutted when he said we could not take the mattress. But we were low on food that could be travelled with.

**Me**: What did you do while out with him, did you ever fight?

**Marcy**: Hell no! I was trolley girl. I would literally follow him around with a trolley full of empty rucksacks. He saw anything or heard anything I would duck underneath and look out for more of them. It was a good system, at last I think it was, he used to tell me I was a big help but...I have my doubts now.

**Me**: There couldn't have been too many could there, zombies freeze in winter.

**Marcy**: London lacked that real winter feeling snow fell but rarely stuck for long. They might have been slower but...Simon still thought they were dangerous enough and he never mentioned things being easier.

**Me**: Any other people around?

**Marcy**: Very few, I know there were more, I've read the accounts and I'm sure you have too. Simon and I couldn't have been far from here to be honest (She gestures around us) I even remember seeing the water a few times on our longer walks.

**Me**: Did you have any encounters?

(She laughs at this)

**Marcy**: Encounters! Some git shot at use once but I don't think you would call it an "Encounter".

**Me**: What! When did this happen?

**Marcy**: Oh ye errrrm...tail end of our time in London, like a week or so before we headed off. We were up near a rural kind of area, a place Simon said he had gone on his long trips. It was a nice place, well was, solid houses, nice lack of the zombells. I was having a great time, pushing my trolley along with Simon behind me helping.

It was all good and till we got to these turned over cars in a barrier like set up, there was no one there so we had a look around. Simon said we couldn't go over it though I wanted to. Made sense I knew, the trolley was mostly full, sun was on its way down so we had to move or risk the dark.

That last bit got me moving, I had never been out after dark. Simon would never hear of it and neither would I, I was barely eight. As were turning around, talking about the good dinner we would be having with what we had today. When something pinged off my trolley and then everything was scary again.

Simon stuffed me behind him and pulled out this tiny looking hand gun. I'd never seen it before and I don't know where he was keeping it. But he fired two shots back over the barrier and through me into the trolley.

**Me**: Did it attract any of the dead?

**Marcy**: We didn't stay long enough to see. He ran me back to the tower faster than I thought we could get there. I was in shock I think, I was curled up in a ball hugging a sack full of soul cans.

When got back Simon barred the doors and dragged me up to the roof for the first time in ages. He bundled me up in everything we had and bolted the roof door as well. He got me food, my favourite tomato soup and then just stood there by the door...

(She grows silent)

**Me**: Are you alright?

(She takes a moment to respond)

**Marcy**: Ye I'm good.

**Me**: Was he?

(She is silent again)

**Marcy**: Eventually ye. He was...I don't know whirred I guess. But I can't say for sure with what happened later on and all but...he calmed down in the end. It took a few days before he was back to normal, he was gone for one of them. Came home with another hand gun, the eight year old did not put two and two together.

(She starts laughing)

Sorry, I'm sorry but, that just reminded me of something. When we finally left the city, biggest rucksacks full and maps out. We had to slink our way out of the city to avoid the reachers on the road.

It took maybe three days, the first days we slept rough together. Mostly it was a barricaded cupboard inside a locked up house. But one night it was inside an over turned lorry, it was mouldy, horrible and uncomfortable. But it was safe and we had it worse later on.

Anyway we finally get to some empty enough roads and start our way out of London proper. Then Simon turns to me, points to a half rusted sixty mile an hour speed sign and asks me what half of that is. It's been like eight or nine months since I'd been to school or if I'm honest even looked at a number. I told him this and he got that damn look on his face.

Years with that guy and you know what I learnt fastest, go on guess!

**Me**: The look?

**Marcy**: That damn look, it meant that the fun was now over. No more bouncing on the old sofa, no throwing cans to distract Zeds. It was all hard work from that point.

I don't know how far it was between London and the town we were going to. But on the road he forced me to relearn everything I had forgotten from school and threatened to do it again if I ever forgot again.

**Me**: So what happened after you left London?

**Marcy**: Weeks of travel and what I'm guessing now is the start of year two. Now here is where the story gets close to the books.

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_Well that was a chapter and a half, please review if you have time I am open to constructive criticism about anything apart from my spelling. Can't help it, it takes me ages to just get it this good. Ill get to work on the next one "Year Two" five point to who ever can guess the name of the chapter after that is called._


	4. Chapter 3: Year Two

_Back to Simon and Marcy again, I hope you enjoy this one. I think of this one as a sort of through chapter, the next year I have planned is one of my favourites. But its a ten year story so...enjoy._

_Disclaimer: I do not own world war z or its characters, all of these characters are in fact mine. An advantage of living in a country that Max Brooks seems to think will revert to the medieval period the second anything goes wrong..._

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Chapter 4 – Year 2

**Marcy**: I want this on record, I hate long walks now. Loved them as a kid, I hate them now. Almost ten years of walking around the country, looking for a safe place and my feet are a callused brown mess. I have bet people I could walk on broken glass before and made money from it.

Anyway ye on the move and into year two. Well like I bet you can guess it was a different experience, we could only move so far each day. Once the sun was at a certain point in the sky Simon would drag me off to a new hiding spot. We even back tracked a few times when we could not find anything up ahead.

**Me: **Where were you headed?

(_She shrugs_)

**Marcy**: No idea, I was never kept in the dark but I had no idea what Simon was after. I was never one to think too far ahead, that was Simon's job. I did my chores and he would make me laugh when it was safe to…..man that sounds depressing now.

We had to have been on the road for weeks before he hit anywhere though. At that age I thought we had covered half the country by that point but we were only in Maidenhead when we stopped first time for any length.

**Me: **Why there.

**Marcy**: Just for supplies and stuff, he were good for a while. We had dried meat by the box and even some high nutrition survival rations we found in the back of a camping store. I remember those because they tasted horrible.

Even with all that stuff and so much left Simon made us stop. It was a smallish town I guess, but we only saw so much. The zombells were around, we saw a lot around the train station and the supermarket.

Simon had this great method for getting supplies though, he used to say that so many people in first days were ignoring the infection's seriousness. This meant that there were dozens of homes out there with the dead just shambling around, with who knows how much food in the cupboards.

**Me**: How did he deal with them by himself?

**Marcy**: The garden method.

**Me**: What?

**Marcy**: The garden method. You choose a place with a good size garden out back, fences around and a good gate. You break open the back door and make some noise, eventually the zombells start coming. Simon used to crush them as they came through the door, one by one. I used to find it funny.

**Me**: How effective was it?

**Marcy**: Really! Simon was always careful, he would repeat the tactic three times before going in and even then he was careful. Where even the first rooms were he would be sure to make it safe and stash me in a corner while he checked the rest of the house.

It was a good system, the noise would get everyone on the bottom floor so I was almost always safe as I could be.

**Me**: Any close calls?

**Marcy**: Couple, a teenage slumber party nearly got Simon once and later on I made my first kill when a crawler nearly got me, I'll get to that don't worry.

Anyway the system worked and t meant we had good places to sleep each night. We spent a while there, eating up the local food supply. We got newer better sleeping bags and this long storage dehydrated milk that meant I could have cereal for the first time in over a year.

You know year two was oddly calm compared to later on, you only realise this looking back at it all but it was. I remember waking up one day in a bright pink bed, walking down stairs in a pair of cat shaped slippers I found and getting myself breakfast before Simon got up.

It was like it was all normal again, ye the doors were bolted and nailed closed and the windows covered by sheets and stuff but you know I felt like a little girl again. I remember Simon coming down stairs in a dressing gown, his hammer hanging in the belt bit.

(She laughs loudly)

We both laughed at that and it made me feel good, even when Simon started cutting my hair. Every ten days was hair cut day and I hated it. You're a dude so you don't know but an eight year olds hair extremely important. At that age it's like the only thing making you a girl on the surface, particularly when I was dressed like I was.

For the whole war my hair was not longer than an inch and was on the tenth day. That's one point they don't add to the theatre version, the half bald girl with the bad haircut and her saviour laughing over her horrified reaction.

Mixed feelings over Maidenhead, trust me.

**Me**: How long did you spend there.

**Marcy**: No more than a month, there were only so many houses we could take advantage of. We would stay in a house as long was it could last, as food and protection. We were chased out of more than one, one time had Simon smash through a window to get us out. That was the only night in Maidenhead we had to sleep rough, a dog shed in a really long garden. Smelt horrible but it was next to a big stone wall and was quite hidden.

Simon wanted to make sure we always had running supplies. Our two backpacks always had to have at least a month's worth of potential rations inside and he kept it like that. That why we moved between the houses so often, we ate what food they had and took what could be used. The thinks people never took with them, torches, tape and even tent pegs. You know how useful they can be, tent pegs, really damn useful.

Actually that's how I made my first kill, the crawler. It was the usual set up, big house up out of town. So many people had come out that we both thought we were safe. Simon went off upstairs to check for stuck ones and I hide behind the kitchens island table.

Whoever it was, girl or guy, I could not tell. This thing looked like it had been bludgeoned over and over but had never been put down properly. I heard it first, its chest was so badly messed up it could not have moaned but thanks to the carpet I could hear it drag itself across the ground.

I got up to face it after like a minute of shuddering and waiting. I moved walked over till it was maybe five feet away, it was blind and rotten, one broken arm reaching for me as best it could. Its jaw was snapping at me its head lolling around leaking everywhere.

I stabbed it through the eye, like Simon would, that's why the tent pegs were useful. Sharpen them enough or even don't and they can go right through the eye and into the brain. Took me a few tries at first, I actually kicked it in the last few inches.

Simon was livid, he crush the things head under his hammer and scooped me up and away from there. We got what we needed from the house, I got a new hat to keep my head warm now my hair was gone, then Simon burnt it down.

I think he was trying to make me feel better, burn the monster out of its hole you know. I was eight years old then….I still remember how it felt and how that thing looked. They weren't just monsters after that day, I thought about that in the basement we slept in that night. Now there was a childhood destroying moment, after the whole abandonment in London thing.

**Me**: Did you leave maidenhead after that?

**Marcy**: Hell no, are you joking they were dozens of houses to pilfer first. (She giggles for a moment, looking a little like the little girl she is describing) That what Simon would call it "Pilfering". That man ruined my vocabulary for a while I can tell you.

We left like a week later, it turned into a kind of system for a while. We would move between towns, going through infested houses and taking their food and supplies. We spotted own first proper boarded up fortress area in Marlow, their main street had been barricaded off and boarded up. We stayed clear and went through the outer houses, a lot of small buildings in Marlow. I never licked it that much and we left soon after.

Villages were a pain, too many farmers with guns and half crazed communities. We were camping outside once and some asshole tries to carry me off. He shoot Simon, barely misses him, first guy I saw Simon kill that was not dead.

Simon got a bit paranoid after this and after we had to run through the night from the dead at one point. The zombells were always a problem, the real problem like you can imagine. But people were what really got Simon worried for me.

We avoided villages mostly, so long as we had the supplies. We worked our way south through Berkshire and into Hampshire. Town by town and meal by meal.

By my ninth birthday I had a kill count of ten and had become this wiry little thing that could dart up a tree the second they was trouble. I had my own knife from a turned over truck on the way through Winchester, I needed it to with how bad it was there, and I got a second one for my birthday from Simon.

We broke our village rule this one time, heading into these secluded rural places Wherwell and Chilbolton, they were so close together I guess they could have just been one town. We spent a while there, Simon had a knack for catching cows and knew how to butcher them. We ate so well there I swear it was amazing, Simon was a good cook to and the place was so middle class we had every spice under the sun to get our hands on.

We slept in this one house for little two weeks, it was big and white with this giant kitchen. Simon was happier there I could tell, we only stayed for so long but he collected some stuff before we left.

(She reaches into one of her trouser pocket and pulls out an old flat black leather wallet. Inside are two pictures, one shows a young teenager around fifteen with a younger girl of around ten who shares a similar look. The second is of an older man and what looks like an eleven year old girl with short black hair.)

**Me**: Is that?

**Marcy**: The left one is me and Simon, we took that when we were over by the boarder to Wales I think. The other one is Simon and what I guess was is sister, I never asked after the first time. There used to be another picture in here, a black and white of a woman with a baby. It got ruined later on during this heavy raining period, that's when he got the leather wallet thing.

He took other stuff too, this one handed axe from this huge shed in the back. More of those damn emergency ration things from the back of one of the cupboards. Some knives from the kitchen, big shape ones. Oh and a copy of Harry Potter for me!

You have no idea how long it took me to find all of those books, I had to leave them behind when I finished them too. I still have the covers though, though it made Simon livid when I ripped them off.

We kept going around like this for a good while, moved through Hampshire slowly. We stayed in a few abandoned farm houses along the way. We even talked about staying in one if we found it could be secured properly. But Simon knew nothing about farming so I guess he was just trying to get my spirits up.

We were just leaving Kent, following the coast up, when winter started up again. This was when it started getting really cold for the first time. Snow sticking to the ground cold on some days, we could tell it was weird when we passed the London level.

**Me**: How could you tell where you were, you've mentioned area names a few times but how did you know. Was Simon telling you?

**Marcy**: We had a big map (She gestures on the table to show how big) I don't know how useful it really was, we had others as well. We would mark our route through the country on it, I still have so I'll send you a copy if you like?

**Me**: That would be lovely, thank you.

**Marcy**: No prob, if you're anything like I am you'll love it. We picked up a pack of felt tips on our way and Simon would mark out our way through in different colours as we went along. Red was normal, just town to town hopes, we would plan those out as dotted lines to fill in later. We would use blue to plan winter movements, I kept the winter pen safe for him (she makes a face at me).

Black was for places we would never go, villages and areas he thought were dangerous. Green was for places we would check on along the way or coloured in if we could go back if we had too. Grey was for places we could never go back to, we had to get a new grey pen. We used pink later to show where people we trusted were hold up.

**Me**: This all seems very well planned out.

**Marcy**: Hey that was Simon, he and I used to do this together when we had the time. We only started using blue after that second winter started. It was safer when it was colder, like I said it was rarely cold enough down south to stop them. But they moved a lot slower, falling all over themselves.

We moved through Middlesex quickly and then Essex. Essex was hard, it had one of the big crowds of zombells packing up streets everywhere. All these tiny pocket communities, we had a run around a lot there. We even saw some low flying aircraft dropping stuff off for them, I tried to get their attention but I just call more dead to us.

By the time we were out of Essex we were half starved and on the edge of spring again or what we thought was spring. We were in Suffolk still heading north, Simon didn't want to go through Norfolk, he wanted to head back west towards Cambridge.

We stayed for a while in this really remote cottage like a stones through from a cliff edge. It was nice there getting our strength back, it was a little like living back in London. We or just Simon would take this old quad bike to near back towns to get supplies and stuff. We had lost a lot is Essex, one of the sleeping bags and my old rucksack.

There were only a few around and I was good at dealing with them by this point. When Simon was gone I would lead one over to the cliff and push them over. (She laughs suddenly) I actually heard a report a year ago about a pile of bones some researchers found on the base of cliff.

I keep getting the old map and a checking if it was me that made them. I'm still not sure, I have no real sense of direction, I get that from Simon. That's why we needed the damn maps.

Before we left Suffolk we went clothes shopping for the first time. I had grown half a foot since London and Simon was a lot more muscular than before…not that I noticed.

**Me**: That actually reminds of a question I wanted to ask you. How did you deal with…..growing up with just Simon to…

**Marcy**: Later (She blushes) I'm not talking about that and till I have too.

**Me**: But…

**Marcy**: NO! Please it's going to be bad enough telling you at the time to leave it for now. Let me recall my horrific innocence in peace. This was the good times when I got to find his tattoos funny, not awkward.

So ye it was the end of the next year period when we came up to Cambridgeshire. These years are really messed up I'm sorry, we were mapping time by seasons so the months were off. My birthday is the fifth of October by the way, I tended to celebrate it in autumn when we had the time.

**Me**: What about Simon?

**Marcy**: I was nine I kind of forgot that grownups had birthdays, I asked him later on like a few years later and he just told me June. He was terrible to details, he could remember how to repair a boiler or disassemble a chainsaw but he once forgot how to attach a razor to his shaving thing.

Anyway that's year two for you, boring for the most part but a good break before trying to cross England. Trust me, my tenth birthday was one of the most terrifying days of my life.

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_Well that was it, the least active year but an important one I think. The next one is one of my favourite parts and those of you interested in the Simon/Marcy dynamic should be pleased with year 3. Please review if you enjoyed it, I do enjoy suggestions._


	5. Chapter 4: Year Three

_Welcome once again to the tale of Simon and Marcy, this one was hard to write and because of it I'm going to up the rating for this story to mature. You will see why._

_Disclaimer__: I don't own world war z, though pretty much all of this is original as britain was mostly left out of the original work._

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**Chapter 4 – Year 3**

**Marcy**: Do you know what the southern wall was?

**Me: **It sounds familiar but I don't remember it exactly what it was.

**Marcy**: You were from the north right?

**Me: Sort of, up near Leicestershire but I moved around a lot. I was in Scotland when the panic started up.**

**Marcy**: Lucky bastard (_She sticks her tongue out at me_) you missed out.

**Me: **So what was the southern wall?

**Marcy**: Do you have a map?

I do, a simple map of Great Britain I had used to chart out various versions of Simon and Marcy's story. I lay it out on the table and Marcy leans over the table and smooth's it out.

**Marcy**: Cambridge, Aylesbury, Oxford, Warwick and Bristol (_she points to each area in turn as she speaks_) the five safe zones that locked up most of the south and killed more than eight million who were trying to flee north. You know what a moat is?

**Me: **Zombies swarming around a particular area in great number?

**Marcy**: Got it in one (_She smiles bitterly_) Cambridge was a huge city once, that's what Simon said to me. I learnt later that there were like three or four big safe zones in that city, all with a moat of some kind. We only saw one at first, right by the entrance way near the motorway.

When we saw it we thought we were in luck, Simon guessed that the zombells would be drawn to that area from all around and that if we were careful we would be safe as we went through the city. Mate I was buzzing when he said that, I thought we would have a whole city to play with and no dead to deal with.

**Me: **How long did it take?

**Marcy**: before we realised we were in the middle of a shit storm? Four days, four days exactly and you can quote that in whatever you're doing with all this. We did our usual, we used shops at first, modified our garden method. You clear the shop first, it could be tricky but you could get through it all row by row.

Then you go upstairs, most shop owners lived above or just had flats above. Like I said it takes a while to get through it all, there could be as many as five stacked up above the shops and we had to clear them all. They were a great hall but it made me miss Hampshire, a lot of work to clear all that and we felt like we had earned our food when we got in.

We got some good stuff, food and medicine. That stuff gets important on the run, especially after Cambridge. Four days and till we realised what was going on in the city. There were dead around, small packs going here and there. We avoided most as much as we could, Simon did his hammer dance.

**Me: **Hammer dance?

**Marcy**: (_She breaks out laughing, beginning in cry slightly. It is a while before she is ready to continue_) I can't believe I forgot about the hammer dance. Ok this was before Cambridge and the shit storm that came after, way before all that like own in Hampshire when we were picking off packs of threes and fives.

It was a joke name I gave the thing he did when he faced the packs alone. It was some scary stuff what he did and these days I worry about it a bit. Errrmmm ok have you ever seen those Stronghold films they showed of Noah Green and that weird trance like fighting thing he did. You know (_she strikes up a mock karate like pose_) how he just seems to flow through the hordes of dead and his men follow behind picking off what he missed.

Gods I thing they made one like that for Simon as well!

**Me: **Caesar's Hammer?

**Marcy**: YES! That's the one, that's the Hammer dance! That big mallet of his and an axe or screwdriver, mostly axe at that point I got the axe later when I could lift it properly. But ye scary stuff, I guess that's why they get paired together so much. The fans want to know who would win and don't ask me I'm biased and Simon's taller!

So ye Cambridge nearly got us, real nearly. It was the fifth morning, dawn, it was late dawn because winter was still going on and Simon and I liked the lie in. They didn't break down the door or anything, they had no clue we were up there and the doors were set up to keep us alert.

I heard them first, Simon was out cold on a chair in the corner. I broke one of his new rules, no looking out of the window when we stay in cities….what I saw was thousands of them. I know it had to be less but it looked like thousands of them. Grey and disgusting, the real dead you see in the books. I almost screamed, I had the sense not to.

Simon was up quickly and just as shocked as I was, we had no plan for this kind of situation. We had talked about what to do if it got really bad but we were talking like a hundred of them spread out. This was like a river them, several rivers. They were headed both up and down the road like in a practised commute of death, they were going from one safe zone to another. Nothing practised, just the dumb dead forgetting what they were looking for then following another that wondered off. This kept going on throughout the war, the whole city I was told was just streams of the dead.

**Me: **How did you get out?

**Marcy**: Brute force and ignorance, that's what Simon called it. We had one plan for stuff like this, it was in my pack and I was always scared it would go off when were weren't looking. It was nothing amazing juts and egg timer I picked up an empty village we couldn't find on the map. The kind of thing you saw on a shelf and almost never used.

We planned it out for about an hour, it was an old building and the ones around it had been built up around it and left it oddly organised. There were windows that just faced an alley way out the back of the building, it was full of old rubbish bags and one huge wheelie bin that looked like it would either support a car or collapse if you touched it.

Simon broke the window out front, loudly to get their attention. They would swarm into the shop and try to work their way up to us. It was a risk but the egg timer was just part of the plan. You get them all facing you, jamming them into a bit of one way traffic at you. Then you hit them with the timer, you set it for a minute and throw it behind them.

When it rings they jam themselves up in confusion, a big deadlock of bodies that gives you an opening to escape. It work well, we went right out of the first story window and into the alley way. Bags first and then us, I got the better of this. I was so short and wiry that I just bounced down but Simon was a big guy and the bin could not take his weight in the state it was in.

His leg got a bit slashed up, remember I said medicine. It was while before we could fix him up though because we were running. We kept to alleys as much as possible, if you ever went to Cambridge then you know what I mean when I say it's a mixed up city. An old well designed system of streets, cut through with new buildings and projects.

We stayed clear of the university, it was full of the dead. It was the biggest of the areas safe zones and we got the message quickly. We had to cut our way through the city, we lost food and most of our sleeping gear dodging them.

It was horrible in the streets, I slept only a few times over the weeks we were stuck there but Simon barely slept. He got…..paranoid and jumpy, he got more and more fearful about my safety. I was back to carrying and hiding all the time as Simon did the hammer dance. Damn it…..it fun when it's a joke but when he got into it…

That hammer of his was, addictive! I could see it in him as we went through the city, he would keep it in his belt early on. He holstered it in this cord he had attracted to his belt so he could work and still have it at hand. He did the same with his other stuff as well, the axe, the blade and our beloved screwdriver collection.

But in that city it was different, it was the first time he had to carry it 24/7. It wasn't some magic thing like I make it sound, it was like a crutch to him, he had to protect me but nothing was there to protect him from it all. He was young to I could tell, I was with him all the time and I…I had known for a really long time that there was something not quite right with him.

He was this posh university student from down south, from a play you would have never heard of. He was…different, completely different anyone I ever knew before. I know I was a kid and all and at that age what do we know but…well you know when someone you love ill or sad. Simon was both and that Hammer was and me were the only things keeping him together as we went through the city.

If we had known what had been going on in the area, if anyone had been there to warn people about just how many were clogged up in the southern wall. We might have avoided the hell that came after we got out of the city, because trust me here when I say that Cambridge was easy compared to running the wall.

Simon and I are the only ones known to have survived running the wall, probably others managed but none have talked about it.

After Cambridge was over we avoided the motorways, we knew what they could be like and we avoided what we could. We went into the closest thing to wilderness Britain has, Simon was against it but I said it was important. We had to get our strength back and he had to put down the hammer, I made him do it, I would have carried the thing for him if I could but it would have slowed us down and the dead were still everywhere.

**Me: **Even after you left Cambridge? How most areas with large moats absorb most of the zombies in the area and make it safer?

**Marcy**: You did your homework. Ye that does hold true in some respects, there are less in between but when they are far apart and the moats are large enough you get the same kind of stuff as in Cambridge only bigger.

**Me: **Bigger in what way, larger packs?

**Marcy**: (_She shakes her head_) You're looking at it wrong, think of it like a giant cue to get to an attraction of some kind. The more people that that line up the more appealing it gets, I mean it has to be good if so many people are lined up waiting for it right.

Except that after a while, a few hours or maybe less depending on the person or Zombell, the line is looking less important and you're just standing there waiting for something you can't even see. I don't know how it worked in a zed's head but we did see big groups separate from the main moats from time to time. Might not sound too bad now but back then what it did was fill up the area with huge milling groups of zombells, flowing from one safe area to the next. It was just like with Cambridge but bigger and worse because this river of dead had of shoots that flooded the area in dead.

We managed to skirt Aylesbury alright, we guessed that one would be full of them but we never thought to go too far north just then. We weeded our way through the wall, we stayed anywhere we could half-starved and half feral in my case. Simon was still using the hammer a lot but he was getting better, we were surrounded all the time but he was sleeping again and the odd moments of peace gave us some rest from the nightmare.

We were at least spared the danger of people on the wall, no one could survive for long outside of the safe zones. We were no exception, I lost count of how many times we had to run through the night and replace half of our gear at the next village or secluded house we found.

Simon got his rest from the hammer but we still had to use it, it's weird how important the thing became. I guess anything would have done the same to him but that hammer was his main tool of war. He could wield that thing like it was nothing and that was half the problem. It was too easy for him!

There were two kinds of weeks for us at this point, peaceful weeks and hammer weeks. I only got my Simon on the peaceful weeks and it was horrible. It was made worse by the fact that we were now year into the war, food was mostly bad or had been pilfered by the safe zones in winter. We go enough to eat but it was hard, we hunted a little but the bow and arrows we got from an abandoned PGL camp were not worth much.

All of summer took us to get through the wall, longer I think but I can't be sure at that point. We got thrown around a lot between Oxford and Warwick, big streams between those two and it was not easy to plan our way through the area. The map was useless in that area and we even had to slip into Warwick after a while just to eat, Simon barely talked to me the whole time we were in there.

We got lucky in Worchester, it had the dead but barely anyone was left in the city so there was no moat. We got to enjoy ourselves there for a bit, there was some food there, we were even got to indulge in our old garden method. We clear homes, slept the night, cleared more and did the same. The hammer stayed in his belt and I got my Simon back for a while.

I'd grown a bit around this point, I was still a growing girl and I was turning ten at last. It seemed like such a big deal then, even if I knew we were celebrating early because of how hard things were. Autumn was still a week or so away, real autumn you know how the weather was, but I had grown a lot and Simon said I was ready.

He gave me his axe, I was still a little small for it but I would learn and he would carry it for me when I got tired. I was so happy there, Simon smiled again and he was less of the giant adult he had been before. I had my partner is crime and we were finally leaving hell.

Bastards had to go and ruin that for me. We found this house, normal like the others. Seemed normal enough when we got there, it was a little e away from the rest so maybe we thought it could be another base for a few days, a sort of semi-permanent thing we could set up while we got stuff together for the big move north. North seemed logical, we had no intention of heading south again, at least not the way we had come.

The house was a trap, five guys came on us out of no were with sticks and knives. Three got around Simon pushing him back with these homemade spears and riot helmet to make his hammer useless. They had planned this out in advance, they must have been following us for a few days at least to guess what we would be doing.

They got Simon a good few times, enough to get his attention and while they had him the other two got me. I got a sack on my head and my pack pulled from me as they threw me over one of their shoulders. Then it was in a car with the engine running, I barely remembered the sound. They waited for their friends, a good few minutes I guess but it felt like an hour to me.

Eventually something spooked them, Simon I'm guessing but it could have been the dead. After that they…we were off, out across the city, I know it was the city because of later but that's not important. What's important is that they took me to a place we had no idea we even in the city.

It was a big block of flats, bigger than the kind Simon and I had started in. It was a fancy place or had started as one and they had turned it into a fortress. I'm guessing they kept the dead out in the same way Simon did, stealth and efficient killing. They were good at what they were doing even if they were a bunch of sick bastards.

**Me: **What happened to you after they took you there?

**Marcy**: You really want to know?

**Me: **Only if you want me to?

**Marcy**: They had other girls there, older than me and half starved. They were being used for labour I guess, that's what I was used for. I cooked for them, I sorted items for them. I used what Simon had taught me to seem useful enough to survive. We were kept high up in the complex, no way to get out, we were lucky to even see daylight most of the time.

I had a friend there, kind of, it was a comfort thing I guess and she was older than me by a few years. I thing she was older, she had tits and was taller and that made her a target for the men, her name was Jess. She was dragged off a few times, came back crying at first but then just came back. It was a hard time and I was there for a while, I was scared about what happened to Simon. With me gone he would be using the hammer again and gods know what else he would be doing.

They started calling on me too after a while, nothing disgusting, not really. I don't know why but they started calling me in to…to beat me. They would strangle me, punch me, touch me to just to hurt me... After a month there they got really bad, they stopped feeding me with the other girls. They took whatever I had on me and…it was hard to live like that. One day they would tell me to go and do some work on the roof for them, it was getting into winter then and it was cold.

You have a strong stomach right?

(I nod to her)

Good cause it's not pretty, the guy that dragged me to the roof was there leader. I never got a name, he was just "the boss" and "the big guy" to me he was just a rapist made my friends life horrible. He kicked me to the ground then ripped off my cloths, really ripped them so that I couldn't wear them again. Then he threw me out onto the roof just as night was falling and then threw my cloths after me.

I had to curl up in a corner, Simon taught to me how to keep warm at night but…have you ever been cold, really cold. So cold that you don't remember what warmth is, that piecing feeling like its inside you, ripping at you. Of everything they did to me I think that was the cruellest. Sitting there waiting to die of exposure, stuck in the one place that reminded me of Simon and a time when I was happy.

I was there through the night, the dark made me want to sleep but I knew it would be a bad idea. If winter had really fallen then then I would be dead, it was still autumn I guess. I can still feel it all, the pain, it was everywhere. Being up there for a day and a night was bad enough but after the daylight was used up and was about to fall asleep they came for me.

Threw down some stairs, I landed well but I was weak I couldn't fight them. They messed with me a little, they did for the next week or so. I guess I was lucky I was so young, a few years later and this would be an even worse sob story.

Saying that they did start getting a bit physical with me just before Simon found us. It was a normal day, more girls were missing, Jess had been gone for a week and no one knew where she had gone. I was in my normal place, they kept me tied to the wall where they ate. Trying to break me I guess, I was barely clothed, starving and my head was swimming. I got a good beating each day, they would smack me around and try to make me beg for my food.

They tried to make me do things for them, horrible things. Worst part of it was I was willing, I was broken and barely sane. It had been weeks and I had no shame left, they would ask me to beg and I would. I would get on all four and wait for them and every time they would just laugh and throw my half a tin of something. I would eat so fast I would cut myself on them, I barely noticed.

(_She shows me her fingers, small scars cover her fingertips. There are also other scars, on her palms and wrists covering the remains of old calluses_.)

They didn't always just laugh but I don't want to talk about that. Something's we never do, not ever Simon found out what really went on. If it makes you feel any better I was still "clean" when Simon got there, promise.

**Me: **What happened when Simon got there?

**Marcy**: Does the term blood bath mean anything to you. I don't know exactly when he arrived, I know he had been making there lives hell for a good long while. I think that's why they were kicking the shit out of me. I heard it, middle of the night. Gun shots! They were forbidden inside because they would attract the dead but I doubt Simon cared.

They were screaming down below, all the people that had been attacking me over the last month. I didn't even recognise it at first, I was too far gone. I had no idea what happening and till Simon got to me. He stood over me, I was half naked a dirty, there was blood on me all mine. He was the horrible sight though, bloody from head to toe, this red monster made from my best friend. His hammer was so coated in it all that it seemed to be part of his arm.

He didn't speak to me, it was maybe a week before he would. He left me there for a bit, came back eve more blood and with cloths my size and a bag of food. He dressed me roughly, like it was just a habit he remembered doing over and over.

I won't bore you with how we got out, or with how it felt seeing all those dead people. I'll be honest it felt good or as near to good as I could feel then. Simon had killed my nightmare again though it was a different one this time.

(_She does not talk for a while, she just looks off somewhere I don't think it was at anything special. Eventually she looks at me again a faint smile on her lips and tear in her eyes._)

Can we take a break for a bit, I promise it get better. For a bit at least, nothing is really good in this story.

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_Ok that another year down, next chapter will be a shorted in between piece and a lot more light hearted. I hope that will make it up to you._


	6. Chapter 5: The Good Days

_New Marcy Chapter, hope you enjoy. Next one is back to the usual set up._

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Chapter 5: The Good Days

(We leave the small café in silence, I follow Marcy's lead as we walk through the city. She is more subdued than before, seeming to want time to herself. I am glad to give it to her for while the horrors she described were her own, I still feel I need time to compose myself before we finish our tale.

It is not long before I realises where we are headed, while much of the city has changed since I was a child in these streets. I know enough to she see she is leading me to victory road, an area right next to old Nelson's Column.)

**Marcy:** I feel like I owe you a something of an apology.

**Me: **How so?

**Marcy:** The whole hammer rant I went on, feel like I went a bit Meta there for a bit. I want this to be clear, the hammer was just what was there. There was nothing magic about it, if he had found me while holding brick maybe he would have gone mad with a brick I don't know. It was a symptom not the real cause. If anything was the cause it was me.

**Me: **What do you mean by that, how could you be the cause of…what happened to him?

**Marcy:** (She sighs) Simon was just some guy before the war, like everyone was I guess. I blamed stupid things back then for when he went strange, the hammer being one of them. But these days I can look back properly with like some perspective.

Simon had to be strong for me, I knew that he even said it a few times. I loved him like a father or that big brother I never had or…whatever you call the guy that saves you from all that shit that happened. He loved me too and that destroyed him. He was a normal man, a good guy who never did anything violent and till the war.

Stuck with me he had to rip the world apart every day. He could never be scared for himself, he could never let me see all of that. I love him for it but at the same time I wish it could have been different.

(We continue to walk in silence, the streets of London are as overcrowded as ever. People are flocking to the city again to enjoy its new second line of walls. One of the safest cities in the world they say, though the rest of the country still has a long way to go before it can truly be called safe again.)

**Marcy:** Hey did I ever tell you that Simon sung?

**Me: **I don't remember you saying.

**Marcy: **Can't believe I left that out. It's this damn year by year thing were doing, singing has no place in it.

**Me: **If you like we can….

**Marcy:** No leave it, this is working and I can add foot notes later or something. Plus it will ruin this for your readers if the great warrior Caesar is tap dancing his way through crowds of Zombells.

**Me: **You can't be…

**Marcy:** No I'm not serious! Dude with how I've described the guy can you imagine him tap dancing. I can't and I once saw him climb a tree naked, now that was a thirteenth birthday!

But ye Simon sang and he did it a lot! Really just imagine all the years we have gone through here and picture if you will that every time we felt safe enough, every time Simon was in a good enough mood or "state" he would sing to the dead and to me.

You want to know how I stayed sane, Simon kept a smile on my face. (She laughs to herself) Try to imagine this; we are going through the south, I can't remember which part but it was you know, South. Big country estate, the old kind. Simon said Downton Abbey but I think he was making a joke. The place was full of them, all the staff, family and a bunch of people who must have got caught up in it all.

Picture a six foot tall shirtless Simon, all pale and tanned skin. Hair a mess, reeking from the road. We had found a working tap player in one of the houses we raided on the way there but the only tap we had with us, could find, was the Village Peoples W.M.C.A. Half naked killing machine dancing and singing at the top of his lungs clearing them out bit by bit.

That might have been the best Hammer Dance ever, if you could call it that. To be truthful it was madness and I was right next to him dancing along. They should have put that in those stupid war movies instead. Caesar dances with the dead.

We were there for almost a month they had so much food left over. We only left because the area was getting dangerous again and we were out of batteries. It was just back to acapela again. I could think or a lot of worse ways to spend our time.

(She smiles warmly to herself again) No matter how bad it got or how bad he got. If I could get him singing he was like himself again, the real Simon that found me bleeding somewhere around here. And always the same bloody song!

**Me: **What was it?

**Marcy:** What?

**Me: **The song? You said it was always the same one.

**Marcy:** He sung a lot of stuff but…he always went back to the same one. The one that had me smiling no matter what was happening. Call it my lullaby if you like, people will love that.

**Me: **How did it go?

**Marcy:** Oh come on you have to know that bit, it was in the theatre version. The reviews call it "I wondrous addition to a beautiful tale". There was a lot made up for stage but that as not one of them.

(He smiles warmly at me, almost innocently. For a second I see the child see describes to me, stick thin and half feral but still a child. A child that has found joy in a place where such a thing is alien. Then she turns away and starts to sing as if just to herself. Her voice is sweet and well practised, I can tell she sings this often.) _I may not always love you, But long as there are stars above you, You never need to doubt it, Ill make you so sure about it. God only knows what I'd be without you._

_If you should ever leave me, Though life would still go on believe me, The world could show nothing to me, So what good would living do me, God only knows what I'd be without you, God only knows what I'd be without you._

You know the rest of it (She rubs her left with the back of her hand) whenever I was sad, he was always there. It was still years before he first got called Caesar, but even after that I can tell you this now. Caesar whatever you end up thinking about that title, he never sung that to me. Only Simon ever sung and Simon was the only worth remembering.

(We reach Victory Road shortly after this. A wide spaced and long street of dark tiles surrounded by tall buildings. Down the centre of the street are the statues dedicated to the so called heroes of Britain. We pass several of them, the Voice of Britain Jillian Green, the Lord of Stronghold Noah Stein, General Raj Hewitt and finally we reach the one Marcy was looking for.

It is near the end, they are placed in no real order but Caesar is nearer the end of the line. He stands there in white marble, his faced bearded and fierce. He hold the great hammer, a malate of some kind from how it looks. He holds in defensively in one hand while his other is on a second figure on the plinth they both stand on.

It is one of only two statues that have more than one figure included on it. Next to Simon is a small girl, no more than ten. She is small and weak looking, nothing like the woman I stand with. However there is something about the figure that reminds me of her. The statue Marcy has the same watchful eyes, always starring out. In one of her small hands is a screw driver, held close to her chest while the other is gripping her protector's shirt.)

**Marcy: **(Looking up at Simon's face)They never get his eyes right….


End file.
